I had always gone to church, and made the responses
attentively, while I knew that was not praying, and tried to pray better
than that; but now I was really asking from God something I sorely
wanted. "Father in heaven," I said, "I am so miserable! Please, help me!"
I rose, went into the house, and up to the study, took a sock I was
knitting for my uncle, and sat down to wait what would come. I could
think no more; I could only wait.
CHAPTER XIII.
OLD LOVE AND NEW.
While I waited, as nearly a log, under the weariness of spiritual unrest,
as a girl could well be, the door opened. Very seldom did that door open
to any one but my uncle or myself: he would let no one but me touch his
books, or even dust the room. I jumped from the chest where I sat.
It was only Martha Moon.
"How you startled me, Martha!" I cried.
"No wonder, child!" she answered. "I come with bad news! Your uncle has
had a fall. He is laid up at Wittenage with a broken right arm."
I burst into tears.
"Oh, Martha!" I cried; "I must go to him!"
"He has sent for me," she answered quietly.
"Dick is putting the horse to the phaeton."
"He doesn't want me, then!" I said; but it seemed a voice not my own that
shrieked the words.
The punishment of my sin was upon me. Never would he have sent for Martha
and not me, I thought, had he not seen that I had gone wrong again, and
was no more to be trusted.
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